Thoughts on the educational system.
Jun. 2nd, 2010 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zephyrofgodOne of the things I've really struggled with is fitting into the education system and pushing past the learning stage and into being empowered to learn by my profs. A few of my profs have done so, but on the whole, I've been frustrated with PowerPoints and not being able to use creativity in exploring various ideas and theorems. Yes, I realise that my degree area is history. Yes, I realise that a lot of this has been relegated to late-term undergrad up to post-bac and beyond.
I watched the following video tonight, and it's brought me to a few thoughts on the matter. Here. You go watch it. I'll be here after you do.
Okay. You're back.
I identify with Dan Brown (the guy in the video, not the authour). I feel he makes some valid points. After high school, institutional education goes from making sure that students grasp and master the building blocks to...grasping and mastering building blocks. It's been my experience, and yes, I realise that not everyone had the opportunity to attend a college prep high school. I remember walking into my college psychology classes and finding that the book that I used in high school was the exact same text we were going to use in that class. I don't remember studying at all for that class, and I passed with flying colours. At the same time, though, I remember my biology class - and all my prof did was read off of the PowerPoint. We weren't allowed to question her, nor did she lead us into discussion, and due to similar instances in other classes, college became frustrating for me. There are times I wonder why colleges are teaching things like "Writing Papers" (NWMSU has it!) and "Using Computers" (Again, NWMSU has it - and it was obsolete when I took it nearly ten years ago!) and covering things that should have been covered in high school. The Internet has revolutionised (in a lot of ways) how we learn and gather information. Creativity gets squelched, too. I can't speak for anyone else, but I was always urged to just do the classwork, even if I found it particularly boring and even if I thought it busywork. My classes on educational theories even told me to not rely on busywork...but here I was, at the collegiate level doing, yep, you guessed it, busywork.
That being said, should the institutional educational system die? This is where I disagree with Dan Brown. University is more than classroom experience, and that experience is not only valid, but part of one's maturation process. Unfortunately, the Internet cannot teach it - it can only show others' experiences. Since life is a series of experiences, so much of that is limited if one only chooses the Internet for one's sole expression of experience. Sure, sitting in a classroom scribbling relatively similar yet random facts on lined paper (unlined, in my case!) is boring, but there are parts of that experience that can be changed. Some of the best learning I feel I got in high school and college built upon experiential learning. I did stuff. I learned. (It's part of the reason I like the SCA so much.) Yes, I wrote notes. Yes, I sat, bored to tears in lectures with two hundred people crammed into a lecture hall. Yes, I still don't think the lecture system completely works for some disciplines, BUT, this is no reason that this aspect of the institutional education needs to be completely dismantled.
The educational system has issues, and we have to figure out how to make it work. Not only do we have to make it work, but we have to find a way to better bridge the gap between high school and universities. Once we've bridged this gap, we need to figure out how to empower and charge students with not only learning, but with coming up with creative solutions and not squelching it. I'm not sure where to start this dialogue, but it needs to exist. It will take time. It might even take money. But, we can't be afraid of the learning process and making mistakes. Too much of institutional learning is not getting dirty and making mistakes - that's already done for us.
(Of course, what sort of conversation would this be if I didn't allow other people to post? As always, open to discussion.)
I watched the following video tonight, and it's brought me to a few thoughts on the matter. Here. You go watch it. I'll be here after you do.
Okay. You're back.
I identify with Dan Brown (the guy in the video, not the authour). I feel he makes some valid points. After high school, institutional education goes from making sure that students grasp and master the building blocks to...grasping and mastering building blocks. It's been my experience, and yes, I realise that not everyone had the opportunity to attend a college prep high school. I remember walking into my college psychology classes and finding that the book that I used in high school was the exact same text we were going to use in that class. I don't remember studying at all for that class, and I passed with flying colours. At the same time, though, I remember my biology class - and all my prof did was read off of the PowerPoint. We weren't allowed to question her, nor did she lead us into discussion, and due to similar instances in other classes, college became frustrating for me. There are times I wonder why colleges are teaching things like "Writing Papers" (NWMSU has it!) and "Using Computers" (Again, NWMSU has it - and it was obsolete when I took it nearly ten years ago!) and covering things that should have been covered in high school. The Internet has revolutionised (in a lot of ways) how we learn and gather information. Creativity gets squelched, too. I can't speak for anyone else, but I was always urged to just do the classwork, even if I found it particularly boring and even if I thought it busywork. My classes on educational theories even told me to not rely on busywork...but here I was, at the collegiate level doing, yep, you guessed it, busywork.
That being said, should the institutional educational system die? This is where I disagree with Dan Brown. University is more than classroom experience, and that experience is not only valid, but part of one's maturation process. Unfortunately, the Internet cannot teach it - it can only show others' experiences. Since life is a series of experiences, so much of that is limited if one only chooses the Internet for one's sole expression of experience. Sure, sitting in a classroom scribbling relatively similar yet random facts on lined paper (unlined, in my case!) is boring, but there are parts of that experience that can be changed. Some of the best learning I feel I got in high school and college built upon experiential learning. I did stuff. I learned. (It's part of the reason I like the SCA so much.) Yes, I wrote notes. Yes, I sat, bored to tears in lectures with two hundred people crammed into a lecture hall. Yes, I still don't think the lecture system completely works for some disciplines, BUT, this is no reason that this aspect of the institutional education needs to be completely dismantled.
The educational system has issues, and we have to figure out how to make it work. Not only do we have to make it work, but we have to find a way to better bridge the gap between high school and universities. Once we've bridged this gap, we need to figure out how to empower and charge students with not only learning, but with coming up with creative solutions and not squelching it. I'm not sure where to start this dialogue, but it needs to exist. It will take time. It might even take money. But, we can't be afraid of the learning process and making mistakes. Too much of institutional learning is not getting dirty and making mistakes - that's already done for us.
(Of course, what sort of conversation would this be if I didn't allow other people to post? As always, open to discussion.)
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 03:14 am (UTC)You are coming at this from the point of view of someone who went to a college prep high school. (So did I, and I sympathize with your perspective, because I felt it too... But still, it's a limited perspective.) Classes like "Writing Papers" (we call it Introduction to Academic Prose, Truman calls it Writing as Critical Thinking, but it boils down to Freshman Comp) exist because they are fundamental to most students' introduction (indoctrination?) into the university.
I've taught about a hundred students or so since I became a GTA two years ago, and a lot more beyond that as a writing consultant at Truman for the two and a half years beyond that. The ability to write papers well is a rare quality in a college freshman. These classes exist because they have to exist -- the preparation most students get in high school is simply insufficient to the task. Without a class like that, the instruction in how to write at the college level would have to get shunted to other courses, almost certainly ones where such instruction would detract from the advertised content (and where the instructors would be much less sympathetic to the plight of developing writers.)
I have other thoughts on the issue, but I need a bit to work through them. The composition issue touched a sore spot for me though - composition and rhetoric guys like me have had a chip on our shoulders about being under appreciated since the 1860s. :-)
-E
no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 03:19 am (UTC)That's the thing - there has to be some way to bridge the gap between a traditional high school and college. I totally understand why FroshComp exists. (I had a real bastard of a prof when I took it, who, in a lot of ways, I felt was setting us up for failure in other classes, but that's another story.) At the same time, there are other places where the learning process is changing and evolving and the system woefully hasn't.
(That being said, comp/rhetoric always will have a fan in me, but that's because writing is a skill we have to use, some way, some how, by gum.)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 03:57 am (UTC)Second, I feel you pain. Our university has a few ways for studnets to by-pass freshman composition (AP/IB credit, and for those with a 30 on the English ACT section, exemption). We required, prior to this semester, Advanced Composition or Essay Writing of all students who either AP/IBed or exempted Composition I and II, transferred in Composition I and II, or who didn't make an A or B in Composition I and an A in Composition II. They had now done away with this requirement, meaning someone can graduate without ever having a single class in Composition on our campus. I am appalled, particularly as I wade through emails written, unintentionally, in the style of e.e. cummings on a daily basis.
Thoughts... (Some heretical, considering I have a Higher Ed Masters)
Date: 2010-06-03 03:52 am (UTC)2) A consumerist driven attitude. Higher Education is being viewed less as a life long learning experience that teaches creativity, free thinking, and the exchange of ideas, and more as a means to an end (degree = good job). This leads to demands for students to be able to graduate more quickly, and for many of them, they want majors that just focus on employ-ability without the traditional liberal arts background. Consequently, you end up with more students, in bigger lecture sections, being pushed through factory style.
3) Few states have a system for HIED and P-12 to talk to each other. Additionally, the curriculum needed for student to successfully pass HS tests like the Iowa or other benchmarking tests, bares little or no resemblance to a good collegiate and ACT/SAT prep curriculum. However, since benchmarking tests determine funding in many cases (and are a major part of the No Child Left Behind quagmire), they become the focus.
Re: Thoughts... (Some heretical, considering I have a Higher Ed Masters)
Date: 2010-06-03 09:16 pm (UTC)2) Exactly. One of those things I really disliked about the experience I had in college.
3) Yes, I agree.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 07:38 am (UTC)I was a special needs student, and didn't get any math or English help when I was going through school. My disability is in social and math skills (specifically Non Verbal Learning Disorder, it's basically autism spectrum with math problems mixed in).
I was told I'd never get admitted to a traditional 4 year school and would have to go to a community college for 2 years.
At the time, I saw my career in opera, and in music, you start your major in day 1. In other majors, sometimes you start your junior year. I knew that what they were saying wouldn't work for me, so I did a lot of research to find a school that I'd be able to get into.
I didn't meet any of their requirements, but applied anyway (no real math classes, other then check writing and other such stuff). They admitted me under the exceptions option because I had good rec letters and a reasonable music audition. I graduated high school with a 2.75 and graduated college a couple weeks ago with a 3.23 GPA.
Now, with a degree in voice (a craft I'd say I'm pretty close to hating right now, I might add), about $5k in debt, and a couple classes from the community college under my belt, I can say the skills I really needed to learn (how to calculate sales tax, for instance) I didn't learn in high school or college, and probably shot myself in the foot by choosing a school that didn't really have gen eds, minus English, psychology and German.
Other then maybe sing (and that's been debated) I can't do much else, and maybe theologize circles around most layfolk (but again, most people don't care).
Sorry - I wrote a novel, but I'm pretty passionate about this topic. I just never got the help I needed, and in high school it was their fault, and in college it was probably mine (I did pick a fairly useless major, though).